“The Truth is Out There”
by: David Pacchioli
(Research/Penn State, Vol. 21, no. 1 (January, 2000))

here’s a traffic light near where I live that is never green. For three years now, I have approached this light. From every direction; at every hour; at all rates of speed, and employing every conceivable mode of conveyance except the rickshaw and the pogostick: Car, truck, van, clean natural gas-powered bus, bicycle, and size-12 (okay, 13) running shoes. It has never failed to make me wait. Never. Nevergreen.

Ah, but of course that’s a bit of a stretcher, as Tom Sawyer would say. There are plenty of times when that light has been greener, or more green, than lime jello . . . as I approached it. Sometimes it even seems to toy with me, maintaining a pure and beckoning emeraldness until the last possible millisecond that I can still apply my brakes with (relative) safety. But it always changes: Lemon, cherry. Five minutes later it’s lime again, and I’m on my way.

As the undergrads say, "What’s up with that?" Well, maybe they don’t say that anymore. Still, the strange behavior of this traffic light is one of the lower-profile mysteries I’d like to see solved by 21st-century science.

There are others. Closely related (I suspect) to the light that bears spite is a phenomenon I have observed in grocery stores whenever I approach the checkout area. I scout things out, like everybody else does. I count customers per line, I do my items-per-customer ratios, I scan for potential baggers,

I factor in clerk posture and facial expression, presence or absence of small children and candy, a host of other relevant variables, but invariably, no matter what lane I choose, it suddenly, just after I’m boxed in by other carts, becomes the wrong lane, the lane from hell, the lane that time forgot. The debitcard machine seizes up. The clerk is stricken with abdominal cramps. The lady in front of me, in midorder, has to run back for a tub of "I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-butter."

Take it from another angle: Why is it that my wife, no matter how crowded the parking lot, can always find a parking space? Is it really, as she contends, because she maintains a positive attitude, and doesn’t sulk and curse the sorry state of the world as she circles around, tires crunching gravel? Excuse me, but I don’t subscribe to folk wisdom. And why is it that she never spills food on herself? I’m convinced there is something behind these seemingly loosely related phenomena, and that science can ferret it out. This is what I mean when I talk about a unified theory.

Animal behavior is another realm where I could use some help. Most of my pressing questions here involve Mrs. Hudson, my aging Labrador retriever. In her youth, Huddie was labeled as mentally deficient by a self-styled canine phrenologist, who did a doubletake after patting her on the head. Wily, is what I would call her. One of her best tricks is rooting quietly through guests’ luggage until she comes upon underwear, which she then takes and leaves arrayed, calling-card-like, near the front door.

In other respects, her behavior is even more inscrutable. Normally a creature of saintly disposition, Huddie nevertheless suffers from unreasoning hatreds. She apoplects, for instance, not just at the UPS man approaching the house, but at the UPS man’s big brown van, if she should spy it while out walking, or even while riding in the car. She loves other dogs, except for a small fuzzy pair from down the street who stroll together on a bifurcated leash; these she avidly wants to dismember. Lately, too, she has taken to sitting rapt behind the couch for extended periods—usually while I’m trying to read—attending some faroff signal. I want to know what she hears.

Then there’s this whole business of whether the universe is shrinking or expanding. To me it seems disconcertingly to be doing both. Packaged cupcakes are definitely getting smaller, for instance; while soft drinks keep getting larger. People are getting larger, pants smaller. Variability is everywhere you look. Sometimes, admittedly, the reason is clear: When the pumpkin pie tasted different at Thanksgiving this year, it was because Pop forgot to add the sugar. But why exactly is it that I can’t make the same cup of coffee every morning? Why is it that my computer can’t talk to another one across campus? Why do the years themselves seem to be getting shorter?

Could somebody please look into these things?